JHRover

I'm sorry? I think I've been on here many many times rubbishing the suggestion that you put forward that the only reason we couldn't keep Reed was because his girlfriend didn't fancy it up north. I was keen on signing Reed permanently and Southampton were open for a deal. I would have preferred we paid £5 million for him than Gallagher, yet you came along and said there was no way on earth that could ever have happened because his girlfriend wanted to be on the south coast. I pointed out that was a ridiculous attitude for a professional footballer who would have no such qualms if facing a PL move to City, United, Liverpool It seems to be one of your favourites from the book of excuses - absolve the club of any responsibility and pile it all on uncontrollable elements that we can't do anything about. Just blame family reasons and that will avoid anyone at Rovers being responsible. My understanding of the situation is that Rothwell was keen on a new deal this time last year and wanted to sort his future out with Rovers. That fell on deaf ears and nothing was done until we suddenly triggered the 12 month extension. This of course fits with the radio silence from the club, no news about anything, no signings and Mowbray not knowing what he was doing. So not baseless conspiracy but actually a reasoned explanation. I suspect Rothwell will have been quite unhappy about that - firstly that the club made no effort to keep him long term, secondly that he didn't know if he was being retained, released or sold last summer and thirdly that he was forced to stay for just another 12 months on the same salary. Once that had happened (if that's the way of things) I can completely understand him telling Rovers where to go. Waggott probably felt very good about himself and his clause when doing that last summer - come back to bite him and us. I suspect the same or very similar applies to Nyambe.

Not that old chestnut again. You pulled this one with Harrison Reed saying his girlfriend couldn't cope with him playing in the NW (as though he'd refuse a move to City, United, Liverpool on that basis). Rothwell is from Manchester and other than a couple of seasons at Oxford has spent his entire career in the NW at United, Barnsley, Blackpool and Rovers. His girlfriend is from the Midlands and he's got two young children. So when and why would he want to 'move back south for family reasons?' He will move where he gets the best offer - financially or otherwise - for him and his family. He will know that Rovers aren't offering him that, so he will go elsewhere. Rovers could have prevented this by dealing with his situation last season when he wanted his future sorting. He wanted to know where he stood this time last year as his original contract was expiring. Rovers unilaterally invoked his 12 month option which has blown any chance of a new long term deal. That has Waggott's grubby fingerprints all over it.

It doesn't put anything to bed IMO. It is very welcome news and I applaud all involved for getting it done. The iceberg on the horizon next year and summer 2023 might have largely been avoided with this and Kaminski but that doesn't mean the problems are dealt with this summer. I'm not sure it absolves the club of any responsibility. Maybe it shows the Club realises what a calamity they've made of things with Rothwell, Lenihan, Nyambe - acting too late and offering too little - and are now learning from that mistake by offering more or dealing with these others more quickly. Just a shame it has taken the imminent loss of 3 key players for them to act. If we get one or more of the trio sorted then things will be looking up but I don't think there's a cat in hells chance on Nyambe or Rothwell.

Brilliant news, well done all for getting this sorted

Maybe Mowbray needs to learn to play differently. That way we could sign players who can score and would have had a chance of automatic promotion. Poor managers can't change a system or deploy a plan B and keep persisting with something that isn't working.

Meanwhile look at who Forest and Middlesbrough signed. Next you'll tell me 'we couldn't afford it' or 'FFP' Middlesbrough lost a lot more than we did last year. Signed Connolly and Balogun. No problems scoring goals. Joke transfer window conducted by joke operators.

Sounds to me like someone lower down the chain was under the impression that the DE would be open moving forwards after the Double Decker deal. Wires have been crossed and upon realisation this morning Waggott has put a stop to it. A club with any sort of plan would be releasing ST details for the DE lower immediately and trying to capitalise on the 800 or so who were in there the last two games and make the area into a singing and dancing stand. I thought the drummer in there improved the atmosphere on Tuesday. He's so daft he is probably expecting 4000+ Blackpool, Stoke or Bournemouth supporters coming. Not a chance especially at Category A prices. I don't remember Blackpool bringing that many even in the PL. Bournemouth don't travel and Stoke fans a fraction of what they used to. Yet he sees local derby, recent PL club and club chasing promotion and sees bumper followings. Category A well worth the cost of losing a couple of thousand home fans because the expected increase from a large away following more than covers it.

Mowbray and Waggott's summit meeting in India: Mrs Desai: "so Tony how have things been in the 3 years since we last met?" Tony: "oh great, thanks so much for your continued support, you are wonderful people" Mrs Desai: "how has the team done? I haven't been checking" Tony: "oh wonderful, you see despite cutting the wage bill and bringing in big money from Adam Armstrong we have managed to continue our improvement and have gone close to promotion. We've all worked very hard and the fans are very happy" Mrs Desai: "sounds good. So what do you want us to do next?" Tony: "well we can sell Ben Brereton, another signing of mine, and get another £15 million for him so you don't need to spend again this year. All I need is a new contract to continue and ability to sign some free agents/loans to replace departures" Waggott; "I've slashed the wage bill and we've expertly managed FFP and kept a competitive team despite these cuts. I've grown attendances over the season from less than 10,000 to now 13,000+. Covid, bad weather, etc. I've done all I can - i even opened the Darwen End for home fans because they wanted it but then they wouldnt buy tickets there. I'm going to put prices up again on season tickets because after such a good season they will pay more" Mrs Desai: "great, see you both next year"

"We did all we could" Wednesday afternoon announce Darwen End open for home fans Thursday morning announce Darwen End shut to home fans due to lack of take up. Laughable. Just when you think the incompetence couldn't go further. How many were they expecting to shift in the 7 business hours between announcements?

Lots of good thoughts in there. In terms of Mowbray's future, if I was running the Club it would be as follows: - Gets us promoted = 1 year extension and substantial bonus, given the summer and early next season to see how we start but with a contingency if we are struggling to roll the dice on a top manager - Gets us in the play offs and we lose = a conversation to be had, slightly ambivalent tbh and much would depend on what the owners had planned budget wise, who else was available and what the senior players were thinking. I know it isn't something that will happen here but yes at other clubs the owners and directors listen to noises coming from the dressing room and factor those into considerations. - Miss out on the play-offs = off you go, thanks for your efforts, time for someone else to have a go I say 'if I was running the club' because I think we all know that there will be no such considerations here, and I firmly expect that Mowbray will stay if he wants to. Venkys will not take him to India to sack him and I very much doubt they have any appetite or interest in axing the coaching staff, embarking on another recruitment process and then having to 'get to know' the new man who won't bring a CEO with him. The only issue might be whether Mowbray wants to stick around. I don't buy the whole family man, long commute, hard life talk from him. He's got a great job, is effectively his own boss doing what most people in football would love managing a good club how he wants. He's been doing it for nearly 20 years straight so obviously loves it and during that time has worked in Ipswich, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Coventry so he's obviously happy to commute and move around as most in football have to do if they want to last in it. One thing that occurs to me is that maybe he will throw in the towel due to being fed up with Venkys. It is obvious there was a serious issue around this time last year. A surprisingly good run up to January seemed to overcome that and reignite things with him but after another shambolic transfer window he might be at the end of his tether, especially if there's no money in the summer and the players leave on frees. Then again if they offer him a deal and some sort of backing I don't think he could resist. If this run continues and we miss out and then Mowbray gets another contract I think we will be looking at a further drop in season ticket sales, especially with idiotic pricing and sales windows again. As for who to replace him with most of the obvious names have been snapped up by rivals. People like Steve Bruce, Chris Wilder, Alex Neil, Danny Cowley and Mark Hughes would have been on my list but all now employed elsewhere. Gary Rowett another who consistently overachieves. There are options like Slaven Bilic, Daniel Farke, Valerien Ismael tried and tested at this level and available but likely to cost. But of course when paying people the money Venkys are there is a big wide world out there to explore and recruit from rather than limiting ourselves to familiar names or the lower leagues. If we were to look down the divisions I'd like to consider poaching Evatt from Bolton, or looking at Liam Manning at MK Dons, or Mark Bonner at Cambridge, all of whom have done very well in short managerial careers. Ryan Lowe would have been another before Preston moved for him. But I think it will be the agency scrapheap to find someone without compensation who will work with the existing setup. So come on down Nigel Adkins or Tony Pulis,

So we signed a guy who struggled to get in Spurs' reserve side as the man to get us promoted? Then he got injured we had 2 weeks to act and did nothing. I'm entitled to comment on the lack of business done in January and yes, could have, should have, would have perfectly sums it up. That is a failing on the part of the club and heads will need to roll if we don't make the top 6 because it will be disastrous if we don't from where we were in February. I'm pointing out things that could and should have been done that we failed to do as directly responsible for the downturn in results You appear to want to credit the club with trying and failing to do things. Doesn't work like that.

He's done this with most players he has signed unless forced into playing them due to injuries. So we shouldn't be surprised when he comes out with this stuff about Hedges. He did same with Harrison Reed who had played regularly for Norwich and has since established himself as a mainstay at Fulham - yet wasn't up to the job of playing in our team and needed to learn from Smallwood. He did it with Joe Rothwell and spent 2 years with him limited to 20 minute cameos because he didn't understand how we play. The bloke is a liability, and nowhere near as good or clever as he thinks he is.

What we know is that Dembele didn't sign for us. That's all that matters. We won't get bonus points in May for bidding and talking to a player (even if it is true). This isn't Sunday league stuff where if a prospective player turns you down you just shrug your shoulders and "at least we tried". This is a billion pound industry where a place in the richest league in the world was within reach, so I'm not really interested in trying and failing. Each and every window there is a list of decent looking players that we supposedly tried to get but failed. It is also in the public domain that we can't score goals and it was blatantly obvious to anyone watching that we needed to add to the goalscoring ranks in January. Failure to do so either lies with the owners for failing to provide the cash or with Mowbray and Waggott for not getting deals done. You seem to want to blame neither.

This is the problem. Those stats are horrific for any team or club. Yet because we had a fantastic run in November and December and we aren't in relegation trouble nobody seems to be batting an eyelid. Mowbray has the cushiest number in football. Nowhere else would such a run be ignored or accepted.

All sorts of ways they can get word out on the grapevine. Rich Sharpe and co. the usual. Costs nothing to make bids especially when you know they are likely to fail.

Red herring IMO If a bid was made it was done too late or knowing that he was heading elsewhere. We were just trying to get the free positive publicity that comes with it. A quick look at our transfer business over the last 4-5 windows shows we don't part with significant cash for sought after players from rival clubs. If by some miracle a bid was made and accepted the move would have broken down due to wage or agent demands. We are played by Waggott and co. every window.

No. They came for a draw or a smash and grab and got what they wanted. We had some chances. We were at home against a side happy to sit back. Having a few chances at home isn't an achievement, it is the bare minimum to expect in 90 minutes. Would have, could have, should have - but we didn't.

All very predictable. Rowett dealt with whatever we had to muster without any great problems and will go home happy with a point. For all the complaints about how they performed I wish we had shaped like that at Fulham and Sheff Utd and kept clean sheets. We had a few decent chances particularly in the usual first half purple patch but really any side at any level will get a few good chances during a 90 minute match at home. The fact it is another blank to go with many blanks over recent weeks suggests there is a bigger issue here and it would be negligent for anyone, particularly the manager, to go to bed tonight thinking all is well with the world and that everything is fine other than sticking the ball in the net. We've got a chronic scoring problem and it is continuing. I said in the days following the end of the January transfer window that I was disappointed with the business done and felt we might live to regret not doing more business. I think most of us felt that I think January will be the point that goes down in our recent history as the turning point - at which we had 2nd in our hands and top 6 well within our grasp yet blew the chance to do it. I'm perplexed by Mowbray's ramblings about his January signings, about not needing a centre forward and now saying Hedges and Giles aren't ready for his team. My belief is that Venkys would not sanction expenditure on the players we needed, because the main owners don't know nor care about promotion and will only agree to funds at their summer summit. I'll debate this with anyone who has the time and patience to go through it. I think the talk about money being on the table for good players is little more than a red herring thrown out by Mowbray/Waggott to maintain an illusion with little intention of actually parting with cash. But I suppose there is a chance I am wrong on that and maybe there was money, which we didn't manage to spend. So which is worse? Our imbecilic owners costing us the big time and Mowbray/Waggott covering for them or the owners providing money and Mowbray/Waggott either not being able to get business done or genuinely believing we didn't need a striker in January? Because if it is the latter and we miss the top 6 it should be an automatic sacking. I think our plight was summed up by the introduction of Jack Vale. Nothing at all against the lad but it shows what a failure January was if with 10 minutes to go at home desperate for a goal and he is the one Mowbray has to throw on. Remember he offloaded others out on loan in January too.

My prediction is a 1-1 draw. I think we will fall behind in the first half, then spend ages dominating possession and eventually get back level but too late to go on and win the game. In the end it will be hailed by some as a good point having rescued it from the jaws of defeat and not letting Millwall close the gap and the damage in terms of league position likely to be minimal given the other games tonight, but most sensible people know only a win will do here.

An opportunity to make up valuable points on teams around us. We need to win to keep Millwall at arms length after their good run. We also see Luton have a tough game at Coventry and Sheff Utd play Middlesbrough so points to be dropped there for the teams around us. Also on Friday Huddersfield have a tricky game at West Brom.

Everton showing the pitfalls of appointing a manager based on what the fans and media want rather than getting the best man for the job. The relentless clamour for Frank to get every job going and the protests when they were going to appoint Pereira could come back to cost them big time. Clueless owner caving in to fan and media pressure. Still think/hope they will have enough to survive. We need them to as can't rely on Norwich or Watford to get safe. Can't imagine Everton in the Championship but at least it would sort Sky's selections out.

The fact that Bournemouth have 4 games in hand on Huddersfield and 3 games in hand on us tells us all we need to know about re-arranged fixtures. I find it inexplicable that Rovers would agree to play the Millwall game at this point with the injury list we have, sandwiched by home games either side. We then have almost a month without a home game leading up to Blackpool. Kicking it down the road to April/May would have likely seen Brereton and Dack back available, Nyambe now too.

Maybe this is the explanation https://www.afc.co.uk/2021/07/27/dons-appoint-head-of-recruitment/

The club is at least in part responsible for all the issues though. You seem incapable of apportioning any responsibility on Venkys, Rovers or Waggott. I'm not interested in retrospective claims of big money being thrown around. I think you are falling for the same old trap Waggott and Mowbray have laid every transfer window. Could have, should have, would have. Didn't. There is a long old queue of names of players and supposed bids that have been made or contract offers made that ultimately fail to come to anything. Another reminder that you don't get points, prizes or results for trying and failing. You get it for doing. You don't get credit for trying to sign someone from bottom club Barnsley. You get credit by signing them and them making a difference to the team. We didn't sign him, end of story. Might as well have bid for Messi because the outcome is the same. It costs nothing to be interested in a player. Yes we can be blamed for it - if we were so keen on Dembele we would have made an acceptable offer and got him, or moved on and got another target. Not waited until the last day of the window when there's no time to do anything else and Bournemouth's interest was probably already known.

I find it incredible the lengths some will go to try and find a narrative, excuse or explanation they can settle on that will absolve the owners, club or staff of any responsibility or wrongdoing At least 3 good players are set to leave the Club in a couple of months for £0. 3 players we have invested a lot of time, money and patience in improving and getting to a stage where other Championship clubs would love to have them in their ranks. I personally believe this is just the latest stage in a monumental cock up overseen by neglectful, disinterested, unfit owners and cowboys installed to run the club on their behalf. I could almost accept the shambles that is coming our way this summer - most of the squad out of contract/loan - if: a) The people responsible for it also left b) It was going to get the club to a break even or profitable level c) Lessons were learned and new contracts resolved very quickly for the others who will follow next year I don't think any of those 3 things will happen and come the end of the year it will still be Waggott here, still telling people talks are ongoing with players, some people still swallowing his crap and somehow the club still losing bucket loads of cash. Its like in January. They want us to believe that any significant expenditure on fees or loans would have compromised our FFP position. Yet I simply don't accept that when we sold Armstrong last summer for £15 million and will sell Brereton this summer for at least the same amount. They could have invested in proven players to get us over the line. Chose not to and now we are seeing the results of it. The only shame is the ease with which they have hoodwinked people into believing 'we did all we could'. They didn't. Just like they didn't on the contracts, just like they haven't on tickets and attendances.